One of the services historically offered by financial institutions, such as banks, are treasury services. One purpose of the treasury services performed by banks is to aid its customers, typically corporations, in the management of the corporation's cash flows. One treasury service offered by banks is the taking of deposits. Deposits are a term used to describe the taking of currencies from customers for an indefinite period of time (e.g., call deposits) or for a fixed time period, typically from overnight up to one year. For example, if the corporation has closed on the sale of some assets (e.g., a parcel of real property) and the corporation has not yet allocated the proceeds from the sale, the corporation has a need to do something with the proceeds until it has decided on the final use of the proceeds. Typically, the corporation will execute a deposit of the proceeds with the bank for that period of time.
A deposit has several attributes including the currency, the term and the interest rate. The first attribute is the currency of the deposit. In the global economy of today, a bank can be expected to receive and maintain deposits in several different currencies. Currencies are currently divided into major currencies and minor currencies. Some examples of major currencies are United States Dollars (USD) and the Euro (EUR). Minor currencies include Canadian Dollars (CAD) and Hong Kong Dollars (HKD). The term, also known as the tenor, of the deposit typically ranges from an overnight deposit to a deposit for a period of a few days, weeks, months or years. The interest rate paid on the deposit is primarily a function of the market at the time the deposit is made and varies depending on the term of the deposit as well the amount and currency of the deposit.
In the traditional method of taking deposits, the customer telephones a member of the trading desk at the bank. The trader takes the details of the deposit (amount, currency, tenor) and determines the rate at which the bank will take the deposit. The trader then gives the customer a quote (makes a bid) that the customer then either accepts or declines. If the customer accepts the bid, the trader inputs the details into a trading system that generates a deal ticket representative of the terms and conditions of the transaction between the bank and the customer. A paper confirmation is then forwarded to the customer for confirmation of the deal with respect to the deposit. Typically, the paper confirmation is forwarded to the customer by mail, facsimile or by other manual means. The customer executes the confirmation and forwards the executed confirmation back to the bank. The paper confirmation acts as documentation of the contract between the bank and the customer regarding the deposit.
One significant drawback with the prior art method of deposit taking is that the customer is provided with little information regarding the variety of options available with respect to the attributes of the deposit. As described above, the customer describes the nature of the deposit to the trader over the telephone and the trader replies with a quote with respect to the described deposit. The customer is typically not given any further information with respect to alternatives with respect to the deposit, such as different currencies or different tenors.
A drawback to banks operating according to the traditional deposit taking method is that it requires a large number of personnel in the functions of traders, salespeople and support staff. A large number of traders and salespeople must always be on call in order to provide quotes over the telephone and to book deals with respect to deposits. The manual process of generating and obtaining executed confirmations with respect to deposits requires extensive procedures and the personnel to execute those procedures. If the personnel fail to properly execute those procedures, particular deals may be inaccurately executed and/or documented (requiring investigation of the deal), and more significantly, customers that are dissatisfied with the customer service of the bank may take their business elsewhere.
Another significant limitation with the current system and method for taking deposits is the manual confirmation process. As just described, the process of generating and forwarding the confirmation to the customer, as well as receiving the executed confirmation from the customer is manually intensive and can be error prone. Furthermore, it takes time for the bank to generate and forward the confirmation to the customer. Errors may be not be resolved for some length of time during which interest rates may have changed with a resulting adverse economic impact to either the bank or the customer.